Amazon launches ‘Alexa-hosted skills’ for voice app developers

Amazon on Thursday launched a new service aimed at Alexa developers that automatically provisions and helps them to manage a set of AWS cloud resources for their Alexa skill’s backend service. The service is intended to help developers speed the time it takes to launch their skills, by allowing them to focus on their skills’ design and unique features, and not the cloud services they need.

“Previously you had to provision and manage this back-end on your own with a cloud endpoint, resources for media storage, and a code repository,” explained Amazon on its company blog post, announcing the new service. “Alexa-hosted skills offer an easier option. It automatically provisions and hosts an AWS Lambda endpoint, Amazon S3 media storage, and a table for session persistence so that you can get started quickly with your latest project.”

Developers will also be able to use a new code editor in the ASK Developer Console to edit their code, while AWS Lamdba will handle routing the skill request, executing the skill’s code, and managing the skill’s compute resources.

Amazon S3, meanwhile, can be used for things the skill needs to store – like media files, such as the images being used for the skill’s Echo Show, Echo Spot and Fire TV versions.

The service comes at a time when Amazon Alexa and Google Home are in a race to grab market share – and mind share – in the smart speaker industry. A lot of this will come down to how useful these devices are for customers – and well-designed skills are a part of that.